


Modus Pecudum

by alice_pike



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: M/M, Necrophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-04
Updated: 2012-03-04
Packaged: 2017-11-01 04:13:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/351799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alice_pike/pseuds/alice_pike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>When my dreams weren't filled with a cold voice that bled out of Luke's mouth like it belonged there, they were filled with shadows that stirred and flickered like someone was moving among them. I caught flashes of headstones, heaps of dirt, dark figures at the bottom of a darker grave. These dreams should have unsettled me, frightened me.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>They didn't.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Modus Pecudum

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings** for graphic necrophilia and shota--Nico is 11/12.
> 
> Picks up right after _Battle of the Labyrinth_ , canon-compliant with _The Demigod Files_ , to the best of my knowledge. (What are time lines? RR doesn't know, either.)

When Nico di Angelo suddenly appeared on my fire escape the night I turned fifteen, I nearly had a heart attack.

Firstly, he was the last person I expected to show up, having parted ways with him only two months before with the thought that his research would probably take him a lot longer than that. Secondly, I was hardly expecting _anyone_ to show up on my fire escape to begin with. Thirdly, it was Nico freaking di Angelo.

It was lucky he spoke first, because my shock just at seeing him was enough to render me speechless. Never mind the fact that I had spent most of the last two months thinking about him (when my mind wasn't preoccupied with thoughts about Luke and Kronos, and the prophecy). Never mind that I _wanted_ to think about him instead of the impending war. And definitely never mind the fact that it was all I could do not to jerk off thinking about him every time I wrapped my hand around my cock. And I hadn't expected to see him before I could process these new-found thoughts and desires. 

And now Nico was there, in front of me, and I had to wonder if it wasn't just another one of my fantasies. Because yes, I'd been thinking about Rachel, and of course I'd thought about Annabeth. But they had nothing, _nothing_ on how much I'd been thinking about Nico. And believe me, I sort of hated myself for it. There were so many reasons why I should've stopped myself thinking about it, stopped myself getting carried away. But I couldn't; those reasons didn't matter. My arguments became more and more feeble the more I thought about it, and I thought about it a lot.

 

After Nico had been introduced to my mother and eaten his full of blue birthday cake and ice cream, we went back to my room to discuss Luke and the possible ways Nico had found to defeat Kronos and his army. I tried to keep my mind on tactics, and as Nico was staying admirably on task and telling me to recall everything I could about the _Princess Andromeda_ and the forces onboard, and everything Kronos had ever said to me, it wasn't real hard to do. Finally, we had exhausted talk of the war, and in the silence I was able to think about him for really the first time that night. 

"There's one thing I don't get, Nico," I said. He looked up as I asked, "How'd you find me? I never told you where I lived, or…" I trailed off at the look on his face, which I recognized as a common one of Annabeth's: His head was cocked to one side, his brow furrowed like he couldn't believe I was asking that question. I felt slightly foolish, but only for a few seconds; I was used to asking what I only realized after were stupid questions after years of being friends with Annabeth. But Nico just regarded me silently, and I realized that he wasn't wondering how I didn't know the answer. I thought that maybe, in his protracted silence, he was wondering how best to tell me, or if he should even tell me at all.

Several minutes had passed before he looked at me again. I looked back at him, and I couldn't help but notice how his eyes still had that fire, that manic depth. He remained silent and I got a little lost in my thoughts, so I started slightly when Nico finally spoke.

"I can sense the living, Percy," he told me, "the same way that I can the dead. Well," he paused thoughtfully, "not exactly the same way, I guess. Healthy souls, those not close to death, are harder for me. But the rest…" he trailed off.

I thought about this. It made sense. And if I needed something else to convince me, Nico added, almost as an afterthought, as if he were just figuring it out himself, "They're all the same in the end, you see."

I nodded. "So you must have had a hard time finding me, huh?" It was my attempt at humor to lighten the situation, to get my mind off of death and dying souls. If Nico realized this, he chose to ignore it.

"I found you very easily, Percy," he said levelly. "Half bloods in general are easier to find since they're usually always in danger, but you…well, the closer you get to sixteen, the better I can sense you. It’s been building since last year, since the Labyrinth."

I felt any remains of my smile melt off my face. I tried not to think about the fact that I had been dying for over a year now, becoming more and more like those already in the Fields. It had probably started before that—maybe ever since I was born. I didn't want to think about the fact that Nico knew that, could _sense_ it. I looked at him, sitting carelessly through the silence between us. He was still growing, and his hair was long, almost to his shoulders, blending into his entirely black wardrobe, the skull ring still glinting dully on his finger. He seemed so relaxed, so comfortable with himself, that it was all I could do to remind myself that he could sense—and talk to, and hear—the dead, that he was probably listening to them right now. It sent chills down my spine, and I tried harder to put it from my mind.

So instead, I thought about everything Nico had done—how fast he was forced to accept who he was, how quickly he progressed from the boy I saw at Westover Hall to the man I saw before me, who was in full control of his considerable powers and abilities; who was able to hold his own in neutral territory in the middle of the one of the biggest wars the world had ever seen.

The thing was, Nico was young. I knew this. I tried to tell that to myself more times than I could count, used his age in argument after argument with myself about why it was a bad idea—an impossible, shameful idea—and why it could never happen. Except for the eyes (and believe me, they were hard to ignore) he still looked young. But there was something about him that made me forget all of that, that forced his age out of my mind every time I thought about him. 

You see, the problem was, Nico was _too_ young, much too young for everything that'd happened to him. If I had thought that maybe twelve was a little too young for me to have my first quest, and to battle monsters, and to have my friends put in danger, than Nico was much too young to begin with, never mind the greater horrors he had faced. He had lost Bianca, had been essentially abandoned, left alone with only the whispering specters of the dead who treated him no better. And although Nico was powerful—impressively, breathtakingly so—it still seemed a miracle to me that he could even be sitting here, seemingly perfectly at ease, shouldering the burden of a much older man. No, it wasn't just that he was young. It was that he was _so_ young his age just didn't matter anymore. He didn't act his age—was never _allowed_ to act his age—and he wasn't held to any of the standards of someone his age. He was forced into maturity far beyond his years, knew and felt and experienced things that no one his age should ever be subjected to. Besides, I thought with a slight jolt, technically, Nico had been physically alive longer than any of us.

"So, uh," I began, because I had started to get uncomfortable with the silence and with where it let my thoughts wander off to, although I had no idea what else I would say to him.

He looked up at me again, and I glanced away, anything to get away from the intensity of his gaze, the unfathomable depths of his eyes. I watched instead as he brushed a lock of hair away from his face. I noticed that there seemed to be dirt or something on his hands and under his fingernails, dark again his pale skin. 

"Look Percy, I'm sorry if I freaked you out with the whole, I-can-sense-your-death thing," he said in a tone that suggested no remorse whatsoever. "It's just something that I've always been able to do, even before I knew what I was doing or what was actually happening. It's not really a conscious thing, and it's not always accurate, how I sense people." He paused before adding, "I've seen plenty of people die whose spirits were healthy."

"And vice versa?" I asked, interpreting his hesitation.

He sighed. "Not as commonly, no. But it has happened."

And now there was the slightest hint of sadness in his voice, and I wondered sardonically if it was because he was sorry for speaking again of my impending death or for some other reason. Because when Nico talked about the dead, well, it wasn't how other people talked about them. He spoke of them with sadness and respect. He spoke of them as someone who knew them only in death, who only _cared_ to know them in death. As far as I knew, Nico had only a few living friends, and I wondered for the first time if maybe he had more _non_ -living friends, and if he preferred their company to the living. He had told me that he was an outcast at camp, as unwelcome there as his father was on Olympus. I wondered now if he minded this as much as I'd always assumed he must have. I wasn't so sure, now. 

I looked at him again. He was idly fingering the hilt of his Stygian sword, which was lying across the surface of my desk. I felt something shift between us, and the silence suddenly seemed heavy, as if filled with anticipation, or anxiety; the very air seemed to be waiting for something. Nico wasn't looking at me, or even at his sword. His eyes were trained on the ground in front of him, like he was avoiding my gaze, and I was suddenly uncomfortable in a different way, in a way I hadn't been at any time that night. I was afraid of breaking the silence, but it was starting to get under my skin, irritating me.

Nico stood up abruptly. He glanced sideways at me before picking up his sword and reattaching it to his side. When he was done adjusting the straps, he looked at me, unsmiling but not unkindly. 

"I should get going."

"Yeah, right," I said clumsily, although I had no idea why he needed to go, or even where he was off to. "It's late," I added lamely.

He raised an eyebrow, as if the lateness of the hour hadn't occurred to him, didn't even _matter_ to him; and I sort of nodded feebly in response, the color rising in my cheeks, trying to think of something to say to cover up the awkward moment. 

Nico just gave me the shadow of a smirk, and said, "See you later, Percy," before climbing gracefully through my window and disappearing into the shadows of my fire escape. 

I didn't see him again for another two months. 

 

That's not to say I didn't think about him for another two months. I could barely stop thinking about him for two _days_. When my dreams weren't filled with a cold voice that bled out of Luke's mouth like it belonged there, they were filled with shadows that stirred and flickered like someone was moving among them. I caught flashes of headstones, heaps of dirt, dark figures at the bottom of a darker grave. These dreams should have unsettled me, frightened me.

They didn't.

Instead, more often than not I woke up hard, and would come with only a few clumsy strokes of my hand.

To say I was kind of confused by this was an understatement. Yeah, I was attracted to Nico, and I had made my peace with that. But as far as I knew, I was only watching him dig up graves and summon the dead and talk to their corpses. These dreams felt prophetic, although I wasn't sure why I was having so many of them, or why they never seemed to reveal anything. There was never much sound, but I figured if the souls in the Asphodel Fields were anything to judge by, I shouldn't be surprised that all I could hear was whispering, breathing, incoherent mumbling. 

The dreams varied. Sometimes, I was simply standing in a cemetery, looking at headstones and a pile of dirt—a dark mound visible only because it was darker than the sky behind it—and listening to the murmurs of Nico and the dead, sounding more like wind than anything else. Sometimes, I was standing above the grave, looking down into it, but all I could make out at the bottom were dark shapes, the gleam of hinges on the coffin, the ever-present whispering more guttural in my ears, like the remnants of a voice. 

I'd wake up soon after, but not before I could sense Nico near me, in front of me; not before I could hear the rustle of his clothes and pick out the sound of his exhales from the reanimated breath of the dead.

These dreams fuelled more fantasies until I had quite the collection of scenarios that I'd play out over and over again in my mind, whenever I was bored or whenever I was horny or really, just whenever. I'd imagine having Nico under me, tangling my fingers in his hair and kissing him, trailing my lips across his jaw, down his throat. I'd hear the sounds he'd make as I sucked bruises into his skin, marking him, claiming him. I'd feel his legs wrap around my waist, bringing my hips down to slot against his as he grinded into my body. I'd imagine the feel of my cock in his mouth, how he'd pin me down as he sucked me off. I thought about what it'd be like to fuck him (or be fucked by him—I wasn't picky) and send him over the edge, to feel his body tense up around me and know that I had done that to him. 

And every time he appeared in my dreams my longing for him intensified, despite the fact that all I could see were headstones and all I could hear were the fading echoes of his voice. 

So yeah, I was having dreams about him; and even though they weren't the kinds I would've liked, my body didn't seem to care.

 

The next time Nico di Angelo materialized at my side I was back at Camp Half-Blood for Halloween weekend. My freshman year at Goode had so far been frequently interspersed with these random visits to camp or, more unpleasantly, by unexpected quests with daughters of Ares. With the war fast approaching, I supposed this could only be expected. Nothing serious had happened yet (I happily assumed that Kronos was still trying to recover from his defeat in the Labyrinth) but Halloween was generally a busy time for supernatural forces and most demigods were on call for damage control. Since I was still in New York for school, Chiron had let me return to Half-Blood Hill.

On this particular night, I was sitting on the beach, staring out over Long Island Sound, when the next thing I knew, a dark shape sat down beside me. I realized it was Nico and even after my initial shock has subsided, my heart kept beating wildly. I sat perfectly still, my blood singing with sudden recollections and pent up desires that burst forth against my volition. Embarrassed in spite of myself and irrationally worried that he'd somehow sense my thoughts, that he'd somehow _know_ , I tried to gather them up, shove them back into my subconscious where they belonged. 

If he noticed my frenzied inner panic, he didn't show it. He simply sat next to me, watching the waves crash on the shore. He didn't tell me why he was there or where he'd been. I didn't know how he got into camp undetected; I'd assumed that the boundary line would have prevented anyone from entering by stealth (umbrakinetic or otherwise), but then again, Nico _was_ a demigod, so maybe it didn't matter. Either way, I found I didn't really care; despite the images (almost all inappropriate) still flashing through my mind, his presence relaxed me—I knew where he was, I knew he was safe—and there was something to be said for just being _near_ him.

Finally, he looked at me. "Percy," he said, by way of a late greeting.

"Nico," I responded. My heart was still hammering frantically in my chest, my pulse pounding against my throat. 

More silence. 

I figured he'd tell me what he needed to when he was ready, so I used the time to look him over. I wasn't positive, but I was pretty sure he was still growing. His black hair was still shoulder-length, but much more snarled and matted than it was the last time I had seen him. He was wearing black jeans and tee shirt, and, despite the chill in the air, was covered only with a black leather jacket that hung off of his thin frame. I thought at first that he must've been freezing: the tips of his fingers looked blue and his skin was paler than I had ever seen. But I looked closer and realized that the shadows were deceiving me. It was the same as when he'd showed up at my apartment in the city: his fingers seemed to have a dark base layer of grime, and his skin only looked pale against dark patches of dirt elsewhere on his body—against his jaw line, his collarbone where it disappeared under his shirt, the backs of his hands. 

This time, though, I knew what it was from. I didn't point it out and I didn't bring it up, although I probably should have; I was sure Nico had learned his lesson from Minos, but I couldn't help thinking that he might still get hurt, or even that he'd somehow get caught, shadow traveling or not. A part of me still worried about Bianca. But the truth was I didn't ask him about it because I was pretty sure he didn't know I was dreaming about him, and I afraid that if he found out he'd somehow block them from me. And let's be honest, I wasn't really keen to explain why I wanted to have them.

I felt more than saw Nico looking at me. I expected him to tell me something—some piece of information, something we could use against Kronos—that he'd gotten from his many nights spent talking to the dead. Needless to say, I didn't expect his silence. I looked over at him again, and immediately recoiled.

There was something in his face I had never seen there before, and it shocked me. There was hunger, and longing, and yet an acute sadness that I couldn't quite put my finger on: hopelessness, confusion, the knowledge of something he'd rather not have known. Plastered over Nico's face like that, it was almost indecent to witness. But just as fast as it had come, it was gone. Nico quickly regained control over his features and settled them into something less telling, something more like his usual impassive stoicism, and I wondered if I hadn't imagined it. But there was still something there, lingering: Some light in his eyes that otherwise usually seemed so dead. 

 

I didn't realize what it meant until after he'd left. It wasn't until he had said a hasty goodbye and disappeared into the shadows without another word, and I had made my way back to camp and was tucked happily into my bed in the Poseidon cabin, that the pieces suddenly clicked into place—the dreams, the whispering, the dirt, Nico's _looks_ —and it was suddenly like I had known it all along.

I kept thinking that I must've been stupid not to notice it before. It seemed so obvious now. I knew, of course, that Nico was summoning the dead to train, and that he must've learned how to use his power _somewhere_ , from _someone_ , but now I knew that Nico was digging up graves for another reason altogether.

Because I knew that he wasn't raising the dead he slept with. For one thing, they wouldn't have had bodies—I'd seen Nico with Bianca enough times already to know that. Secondly, in my dreams, Nico was always in modern cemeteries, with new headstones and freshly disinterred earth, where there would be bodies still in good condition and coffins not that difficult to get to, rather than the forgotten graveyards of the ancient heroes.

Despite this new knowledge, what really surprised me about the whole thing was how much it didn't actually bother me. Nico had always been distant, different, closer to the dead than to the living. I'd been thinking of him as a sexual being for a while ago now, so (in my head, at least) it made sense that if he was having sex, it'd be with the dead. I knew what it meant—what other people would name it and likewise dismiss it as. But with Nico, it simply wasn't the same; you couldn't just wrap it up and call it necrophilia and be done with it. You couldn't compare it with other people, other situations. It just seemed _natural_ , somehow, and I wasn't about to start thinking too much into it.

I tried to disregard the fact that part of me—the part that guiltily flashed images of Nico through my mind at all hours of the day and stubbornly maintained that he was older than his age, already mature enough to want and get and handle sex—was validated, and breathing a definite sigh of relief. More than that, though, I flat-out ignored how much better it made me feel.

That is to say, I was doing a pretty good job pretending to ignore it until I went to bed a couple of days later.

This time, the dream was vivid. I was still merely standing on the edge of an open grave, looking down into it, but now I could see everything at the bottom. I could see Nico lying flush against the body beneath him, his black jeans pooled around his knees. I could see the exposed skin at the back of his neck, where his head was nestled into the crook of the body's shoulder. 

He was fucking the corpse of a girl, about fourteen or fifteen by the looks of her, although it was hard to tell as she was still wearing a good deal of makeup, presumably from her wake. Nico had pushed the hem of her dress up past her waist, her underwear pulled down around her knees. The hinges on the lid of the coffin creaked with each of Nico's thrusts, gentle as they were. He was taking his time, moving languorously, exultantly, and with near reverent grace. 

I was suddenly aware that the sounds I was hearing weren't that different than in my previous dreams: They had actually been pretty accurate. The whispering I'd heard before wasn't the incoherent speech of the dead. It was Nico, just Nico, speaking softly into the girl's ear, panting against her cheek; it was his ragged breathing and his suppressed moans into her neck as he came.

I watched all of it, transfixed, from my perch six feet above. I watched as Nico slowly came down from his climax, disentangling his limbs from hers. I watched him as he fumbled with his jeans, pulling them back up and buttoning his fly. When he was dressed again, he kneeled in her coffin, straddling her thighs, and carefully replaced her clothes. He reached up and tucked a lose strand of her hair behind her ear; the gesture was tender, and I unexpectedly felt my heart squeeze a little at the clear hint of affection in it. He glanced over her again, making sure everything was in order, before he climbed out of her coffin and shut the lid. He scrambled up out of the hole on the side opposite me. 

Nico reached the top and stood. He was about to take a step when I saw him stiffen. His shoulders visibly tensed, and his whole body was suddenly taut like a loaded spring. After several prolonged seconds, he turned and stared at exactly where I was standing, his brow creased in bewilderment. 

Needless to say, I panicked. I was pretty sure he couldn't _see_ me, exactly, as he looked only slightly suspicious, his head tilted to the side like he was trying to work out what was there. But I was also pretty damn sure that he could sense my presence, and probably for the first time. Just as he narrowed his eyes and really _looked_ , I jerked awake, breathing heavily into the dark of my empty cabin. Adrenaline was coursing through my body and settling in my already hard cock, and I rolled over and ground my hips into the mattress, the clumsy, warm friction enough to make me come five thrusts later.

To say I was preoccupied by this new state of affairs was quite another understatement. I wasn't just preoccupied: I was obsessed. I couldn't stop thinking about it no matter how hard I tried. Even when I didn't want the images, when I didn't want to think about Nico (out there, alone) sleeping with the dead, they flew through my mind non-stop, practically haunting me. 

Before Nico had showed up, when I jerked off I usually just imagined him _with me_ , and got off thinking about everything I wanted to do to him. But now I couldn't help thinking about him fucking corpses, _corpses!_ , for the gods' sake, and my body—my horrible, morally unaware, betraying body—still didn't seem to care.

 

I passed the time until Thanksgiving break in a blur of confused lust and anxiety. I was happy to get back to camp and have the Poseidon cabin to myself. It was getting harder and harder to hide my problems from my mom and Paul, and the last thing I wanted was to answer their questions about why I couldn't sleep and why I looked so miserable.

Annabeth, who was staying at Camp Half-Blood year-round again after it had become too dangerous for her to stay in San Francisco with the magnitude of monsters that were attacking her, spent a good deal of time alone with me whenever I was there, talking about the war and possible courses of action and battle strategy. She was the only one I had yet told about Nico's offer, so she was the only one who knew the full potential of our plans. But it was hard talking about Nico, as at the mere mention of his name my body went into overdrive, my heart beating frantically and my mind working double-time like it was completely out of my control. 

I must've hid it well enough, though, because after I had told her everything Nico had said to me on my birthday for what seemed like the gazillionth time, she kept talking about him, completely unaware of what the topic did to me, and how I had to fight to contain my thoughts. 

"I wonder where he is," she asked rhetorically, making it sound casual enough, but I could hear the trace of worry in her voice, and I knew just how concerned she really was. Without thinking, I answered her.

"Spokane," I said, matter-of-factly.

She was caught off guard and looked at me in surprise. "How do you know that?"

I hesitated, immediately wishing I hadn't responded. The truth was that sometimes, in my dreams, I could sense where Nico was, almost like how I instinctively knew my bearings at sea. And I knew that last night, he was in Washington.

"I, uh…" I said compellingly.

"Have you seen him? Recently, I mean?" she asked sharply, ignoring my feeble attempts at an explanation. 

"No," I said quickly. "Uh, not really. I just—"

"What do you mean, 'Not really'?" she asked skeptically. "Have you seen him or not, Percy?"

I hesitated again, looking for a way out of this. I couldn't find one. "Annabeth," I pleaded, finally, "can you just drop this?"

"No! What if he—"

"He's fine," I assured her. "Everything's fine, okay? Please, Annabeth, just let it go." I tried to keep the desperation I felt clawing under my skin out of my voice. I don't know if it worked or not, but her expression softened, although she still looked suspicious. 

"Okay," she conceded, after a few moments. "Okay."

I felt relief flood through me. "Thanks," I mumbled. I did feel guilty about hiding it, but there was just no way I could tell her. I didn't fully understand it myself, so I knew I wouldn't be able to explain it.

Besides, I didn't think there were adequate words to explain how or why I was slowing but surely _losing my shit_ due to my desire for a boy who wasn't an enemy but who also wasn't exactly an ally, the son of Hades whose habit of sleeping with the dead I found to be just about the most erotic thing ever, and who I also just so happened to have prophetic dreams about almost every night and imagined fucking on a more-than-regular basis. I didn't know if I could put into words how I really felt about Nico, how his absence was like the weight of the sky on my shoulders all over again, how my need for him was like an open wound that bled out my energy and love and concern until there was nothing left, only shriveled veins drier than those of the corpses he fucked.

All I knew was that I needed to see him again, and badly, although I hadn't the faintest idea what I'd do if he ever actually turned up. I tried to focus on just getting through the days, avoiding monsters and attempting to write essays on books I hadn't read, making it until my next respite at camp. I tried not to think about Nico, about where he was or what he was doing; but I was still having dreams about him all of the time, and although I was pretty sure that what I seeing wasn't always actually happening—sometimes they had a different feel to them, a different quality altogether—I knew that they _were_ prophetic in that they came from Nico himself; and I always woke up thinking about him. I always felt indeterminably connected to him, and his name was always on my lips when I came. 

And unfortunately, things just got worse.

 

Just as I was starting to get used to the dreams, or at least beginning to appreciate the strange comfort of actually _seeing_ Nico on an almost-nightly basis, I had one of the most intense ones yet. I felt like I was practically standing in the coffin, although I knew that my presence was just anchored several feet above it. Nico was there, lying alongside the silk linings of the casket's inner walls, half-draped across the corpse. Something was wrong about the scene, however, and it took me a second to realize what was different. The body beneath Nico—male, this time, I noticed with a slight swooping feeling in my gut—was face down in the coffin, which struck me as odd: It suggested something less than Nico's usual reverential, respectful treatment of the dead.

The boy's hair was dark, like Nico's own, but close-cropped, and Nico's frame was smaller by far. The boy looked about my age, from what I could tell, and he had several inches and about twenty pounds of slowly decaying muscle on Nico. His khaki dress pants were pushed down around his knees, Nico's black ones almost to his ankles. 

I watched as Nico straddled the boy's thighs, his knees pushed tight against the sides of the coffin, his hands pressed into the curve of the boy's spine. He repositioned himself, sliding down a few inches until he was lined up. When he had forced the boy's asscheeks apart and touched the head of his cock to the unresponsive muscle of its hole, Nico paused, sucking in air, his lower lip clamped between his teeth like it was costing him more than he could give to restrain himself.

He lowered himself fully onto his elbows, his body flush against the corpse, and as he did so, he looked at me. And I mean he purposefully turned his head and looked up at me; and at that moment I was certain he knew I was there—maybe he had known I'd been there for weeks now. I still didn't know what he was actually seeing or what I was projecting, but he held my gaze for what felt like hours, although it was probably only a few seconds. 

His eyes were darker than normal, his irises distended and his pupils blown wide with lust, but I couldn't quite discern the desire I saw within them. 

The moment was soon broken, however, as he thrust his hips forward in one long movement, his eyelids fluttering shut and his head falling back against his arched spine. There was no sound other than his breathy exhale, and it sounded too loud in the darkness, almost obscene. When his cock was fully buried, he paused again, adjusting to the sensation. The boy had been dead for a short enough time that the rigor mortis hadn't yet begun to fade, and the muscles were still tight, contracted, which meant a more intense satisfaction for Nico than he could get with anyone living, without the work and without the wait. 

Nico took a few more sharp breaths and immediately began to move, thrusting his hips furiously, pounding his cock into the corpse with fevered intensity. I could tell it was rough—all instant gratification and carnal desire and an emotional connection that had nothing to do with the dead, or with the boy Nico knew this body once hosted. It surprised me, because I had never seen Nico like this before. The coffin rocked back and forth in the dirt, and Nico's breathing became ragged, harsh, as he tangled his fingers into the boy's hair and picked up his pace, close to climax now.

Nico's thrusts became more and more desperate, and he sagged against the body beneath him as strength left his limbs. His forehead was resting against the boy's back, right between its shoulder blades, Nico's lips moving continuously against its clammy, preserved skin. His voice was stifled, but I could tell that he was definitely speaking, just one word over and over and over again like an incantation, like an exorcism.

Finally, his whole body stilled as he came, his mouth closed tightly against the exclamation threatening to erupt from his throat; but what made it past his lips was clearly a ragged sob, and it echoed against the wood and the walls of dirt on either side of him, and I swear I felt it in my bones.

As Nico came down from his orgasm, still muttering nonsensically, resting heavily against the cold skin of the corpse, I was able to make out a single word before I woke up, shivering and shaking in my bed: A word that sounded remarkably like "Percy."

 

I don't remember much of the next month; at least, the days all blurred together and all I can really recall is snippet after snippet of dream and flashes of time at Goode, bordered by a hazy frame of anxiety and exhaustion and the lingering feeling of my body stretched to breaking point—my nerves on end and my libido on pins and needles, hyper-sensitive but thin-skinned, not strong enough to handle the influx of activity I was forcing upon it. 

Hearing Nico say my name was my undoing; with one word he stripped me down to the bone and forced me to see this for what it really was, forced me to acknowledge my feelings without shame, forced me to entertain the thought that maybe, just _maybe_ , I wasn't the only one hung up on all of this. As crazy as that made me, it also helped. It was the first glimpse of a light at the end of the tunnel, something to look towards, something to ground me in the clandestine chaos my life had recently become. I did eventually settle into a routine, but by the time exams came around, I felt almost relieved to have something else to think about.

Although I really, _really_ should have called in sick on my last day of finals. Instead, I spent my first day of Christmas vacation in Hades with Nico and Thalia, and wasn't that just an awesome way to break up the monotony. Given the circumstances, retaining control of my basic motor functions and some ability to form words was easier to do than I would have thought. Our quest was really pretty quickly paced, and I was semi-conscious for a good part of it, and so before I knew it, I was saying goodbye to Nico on a balcony in Hades' mansion. Thalia kept me occupied for the rest of the day, regaling me with stories about the Hunt and her new life as Artemis's first Lieutenant over burgers and fries. We parted amicably that evening, and I headed back to my apartment, eager to let my parents know that I was okay. 

I didn't realize that anything would be different until I woke up the next morning, relaxed and well-rested for probably the first time in _months_. As I lounged in my bed and reveled in a full night's sleep, I suddenly understood what had changed.

Nico was staying in the Underworld, not a corporeal body in sight, and the dreams had finally stopped.

 

Be that as it may, my state of mind didn't improve much. When I say the dreams had stopped, I don't mean that I had stopped dreaming; my luck wasn't going to turn that quickly. The dreams I were having now might not have been prophetic, but they were just as intense, and they were still about _him_. 

Nothing changed when I returned to Camp Half-Blood for winter break. If anything, it was worse after seeing Nico at Christmas, after being around him and talking to him and not being able to do anything about this thing between us. I was still obsessing, and I had no idea how I was going to get over it. 

I felt like I was going insane. The other campers started to notice that something was wrong. I was jumpy around my friends, snapping out of my fantasies and looking back at them guiltily whenever they addressed me. I had dark circles under my eyes and they must have known I wasn't sleeping well. Beckendorf gave me concerned glances and Annabeth long, hard stares, but luckily no one asked me about it, because I had no idea what I would have said. 

I was able to pass off my silence and exhaustion as anxiety about the war, worry about the prophecy and what it meant. As everyone was pretty stressed out themselves, no one looked into it any further. I started spending more time alone, tucked away in the Poseidon cabin or wandering aimlessly through the woods. (I had tried secluding myself in the stables, too, but the Pegasi sensed my anxiety and were jittery around me, whinnying and apologizing sheepishly for backing away into their stalls, trying to keep away from the aura of death they said I now had around me). 

The last days of break were spent mostly in the Big House, as myself, Annabeth, Chiron, and the other counselors began to piece together a plan for attacking the _Princess Andromeda_. We had decided it would be best if we didn't all scatter and return to our schools, so most of us stayed at Half-Blood Hill. As lonely as it was at camp, being the middle of winter and with many of the other kids often gone on quests, I was kind of glad I didn't have to go home. It was hard to hide from my mom and Paul that I would often wake in the middle of the night and sit down for breakfast exhausted, and that my mind was elsewhere, completely preoccupied. My mom knew about the war, of course, but she had a way of knowing when I was hiding something, so my excuses wouldn't work on her for long. It hurt me to lie to her, even if I couldn't possibly tell her the truth; if I was at camp, there'd be no need for any such excuses. And, let's be honest, it was much harder to jerk off as much as I wanted to with that kind of supervision than it was in an empty cabin with hardly any adults around.

The dreams still bothered me, because they still seemed real. I didn't know if it was because they'd been prophetic for so long that I knew what it was like to have Nico really _there_ , or if all half-blood dreams were just that extra-sensory. Either way, it was hard to accept that they were now just _dreams_.

Because I _knew_ Nico: I knew the angles of his body, the jut of his bones, the softness of his skin. I knew what he felt like, I knew how he tasted. I knew his kiss, the way he'd suck my lower lip into his mouth and worry it with his teeth, the way he would lick into my mouth forcefully, never questioning his welcome. I knew the way his fingertips would drag down my cheeks, fall from my jaw as the kiss intensified, the way he'd arch up into me when I bit at the tendons in his neck. I knew what it felt like when he straddled me, his hips grinding down into my own, his mouth attacking the exposed flesh of my neck as a moan escaped my lips. I knew how he'd growl low in his throat as I bucked up into him, trying to get closer, closer, _closer_.

I knew the way his skin would erupt in goose bumps when I ran my fingers down the inside of his thighs. I knew how he'd bite his knuckles to keep from crying out as I took his cock in my mouth; I knew how he'd jerk violently as I tongued the slit, twisting my wrist just so at the base of the shaft. I knew that he'd whisper a continuous stream of words, muttering nonsense as he came, and I knew the taste of his come on my tongue. I knew that he'd kiss me afterwards, lick my chin clean of whatever I couldn't swallow.

I knew the feel of his fingers sliding into me, the burn as he scissored them inside, opening me. I knew the slow, aching press of his cock against my hole, the way I stretched around him when he entered me. I knew how he'd tuck his head into the crook of my shoulder as he thrusted into me, his hands wrapped tight around my upper arms, splayed out on either side of my head, for leverage. I knew the way he'd collapse against me when he finished, the familiar weight of his body pressing tightly against my cock enough to get me off, my come a mess between us. I knew the way he'd sigh afterwards, content, and the way he'd whisper my name into the darkness—the last thing said before he'd fall asleep, his name a benediction on my lips.

I knew all of this—knew it like the back of my hand, better than my own body—and I'd never so much as touched him. 

 

It was the middle of the night, and I sensed him before I saw him. Maybe I should have been weirded out that he was in my cabin while I slept, that he'd gotten there undetected, but being in his presence just seemed natural, the normal progression from sleeping to waking, all within his reach. I said his name before I even opened my eyes, and he didn't seem surprised that I was up. I didn't immediately question why he was there (which, if it was anyone else, I would have) and it was just as well, because he didn't seem inclined to tell me. As I started to wake up properly, it began to register that Nico was _there_ , actually, physically present, and I sat up so fast I saw stars dance in the darkness before my eyes. 

"Hey, woah," Nico said quickly, pushing off from where he'd sat down on one of the unused beds to stand by my side. I looked up at him, disoriented, and I finally asked, in a rush, "What are you doing here? How'd you get…? In Hades, your father, shouldn't you be—?" Almost instinctively and without thought, I reached out for him, needing something solid to ground me. 

He evaded my touch, and said only, "Maybe we should do this in the morning," which confused me even more (do _what_ , precisely? I thought) and he placed his hand on the side of my head; my eyes fell closed, and I was asleep before my head hit the pillows. 

When I woke up, the cabin was empty—no evidence of what had happened that night. Judging by the light outside, it was just before dawn. My windows were laced with frost, which I thought was weird since it was late March, and the magical boundaries around the camp kept out most of the severe cold after February. I threw off the covers and dressed as quickly as I could in the unnatural chill of my cabin. I was anxious to go find Nico (I knew he was still here somewhere, knew inherently that last night wasn't just another dream) and I wanted to talk to him alone before the rest of the camp woke up and I wouldn't have the chance to.

As it turned out, I couldn't find him anywhere. I was agitated throughout breakfast and didn't speak much to anyone, although this wasn't exactly unusual for me and mostly went unnoticed; Annabeth asked if anything was especially wrong, and I thought about telling her that Nico was here—I knew I'd have to eventually—but quickly decided against it. It wasn't that I wanted to keep Nico a secret or anything, except that I actually kind of did. 

There wasn't much to do that day (we were waiting for some of Apollo's kids to get back from their latest reconnaissance trip with recent news before we took any more action) so around two in the afternoon I headed back to my cabin, thinking vaguely of jerking off and taking a nap since I'd gotten up so early that morning. 

But those thoughts were quickly driven out of my mind when I saw a shadowy shape sitting on my bed, looking for all the world like he was waiting for me to get back (which, I thought to myself bemusedly, he probably was). 

Nico looked exactly as I'd expected, no different than what I'd been seeing; it was almost like it hadn't been nearly three months since I'd spoken to him. It felt like I'd seen him every night that I dreamed about him, like he'd actually been there, like I'd actually touched him. I could still feel his hands on me, I could still taste him on my lips, and it was so easy to forget that he didn't know what I'd been through, that he didn't know how I really felt.

But I could also still hear him say my name as he came into the corpse of a fifteen year old boy, and my cock twitched in interest. That memory drudged up all of the others, every thought that had sustained me lately, and I couldn't stop them flashing through my mind, couldn't stop my body's reaction.

Nico was just sitting there, watching me as I stood awkwardly in the doorway, trying to contain myself. Just as the silence began to spiral between us and I felt my control slipping—Nico was too close, and everything was too real, and months of wanting this, of wanting _him_ , were threatening to overwhelm me and I didn't know if I'd be able to stop it, or if I'd even _want_ to stop it—Nico spoke.

"Percy," was all he said, but I'd never heard someone say my name like that, and it was a question and a proclamation and a confession and a plea and before I even knew what I was doing I crossed the room to him in three purposeful strides; I grabbed his face between my hands and pulled him towards me, crushing our lips together. It didn't even occur to me that I'd done nothing to suggest to him I wanted this—I'd never talked to Nico about it, or flirted with him, or anything—or that _Nico_ might not have wanted it, dreams or not. 

But Nico responded eagerly, getting to his feet clumsily, his hands slipping around my neck to pull me closer. I stumbled into him and lost my footing, and our momentum backed us into the wall of my cabin. Nico didn't even flinch as his head hit the abalone walls; he just pressed his body into mine and dragged me down for another kiss. It was one of the most brutal kisses I'd ever partaken in, and it was a little messy and definitely unpracticed, but that didn't matter at all: it was still the most erotic thing I've ever experienced. We rocked into each other, just friction and raw heat, and eventually we broke apart, gasping for air. 

"Nico," I panted, but didn't give him time to respond, immediately kissing him again. There was a little more finesse to it this time, now that it wasn't simply a matter of satisfying what felt like had become a basic need for survival, and I could actually start to enjoy it. Nico kissed me back with the same fevered intensity I felt, and he arched up into me when I ground my hips into his, pinning him against the wall. 

One of Nico's hands moved up and cupped the back of my skull, his fingers twining painfully into my hair; his other arm was wrapped around my back, keeping me close to him. My hands moved down his neck to splay over his shoulders, and I sagged against him, letting all of my body weight push into him, the wall the only thing supporting either of us. Nico yanked my head back and mouthed across my jaw, down my neck. He bit at my Adam's apple and left behind a sticky trail of saliva as he kissed his way across my throat, tonguing at the hollows of my clavicles and nosing his way under the collar of my shirt. Almost involuntarily, I gasped out his name again, but his only response was to move his hand lower, gripping my ass and forcing me closer as he rocked into me, his erection brushing mine through the material of our jeans. I hissed at the contact, and rutted against him, trying to get more friction. He managed to slip his knee between my legs, and I rolled my hips against his thigh, my breath catching in my chest. He pushed back against me, and I leaned down to kiss his neck, sucking a bruise right over his pulse. 

"Per—Percy," he choked out desperately, and I realized belatedly that he was now trying to push me off of him, signaling that we should get somewhere near a bed, and soon. I had absolutely no desire to interfere with this plan, so I grabbed the collar of his shirt in my fist and dragged him backwards to my bed. We nearly tripped over each other in our haste to get there because we refused to be more than three inches apart, and when my knees caught on the edge of my mattress and I fell back onto it, he came too, landing squarely on top of me; he pushed himself up onto his knees and shuffled around until he was straddling my thighs.

He leaned down and kissed me once, quickly, before slipping his hands under the hem of my orange camp T-shirt and all but ripping it off of me. He threw it aside dismissively and his hands then went immediately to my fly; he had my belt unbuckled and was tugging at my jeans before I could do much more than lodge a complaint that he was still fully clothed. Despite my indignation, however, I lifted my ass off the mattress so he could get my pants down, and I toed off my shoes so I could kick them off completely. Nico followed suit (only with the shoes, though, sadly) and they left a dry pile of dirt where they thudded against the floor. 

He started to climb back on top of me, his fingers making their way to the waistband of my boxers, and I frowned at him, looking disdainfully at his shirt. He laughed at that and straightened back up, pulling it off over his head. After he'd thrown it aside he gave me a look as if to say, "Can I continue now?" and I nodded, waving my hand down at my body like, "Help yourself."

Nico didn't waste any time. He tugged my boxers down and freed my cock, and then shimmied around so he could push them down my legs. They caught around my ankles, but I managed to kick them off before Nico reached down and wrapped his hand around the base of my cock. I couldn't stop myself crying out at that, and Nico smirked, satisfied. He started jacking me off, painfully slowly, and I couldn't help bucking up towards him, trying to get _more_ , fucking into the circle of his hand. His weight on my legs prevented me from doing much, but he didn't stop me from trying. 

He picked up the pace, twisting his wrist with every stroke, and he only seemed to get more and more confident as precome collected at the head of my cock. I could barely get enough air into my lungs, and my fingers scrabbled uselessly at the material of my sleeping bag beneath me, trying to find _something_ to hold on to.

His thumb swiped experimentally over the head, spilling my precome over his fingers, and when I jerked beneath him, he did it again, a curious expression on his face and a "Hmm" low in his throat. I could feel my orgasm at the base of my spine, just under my skin, and I squeezed my eyes shut in an attempt to regain control, wanting to make this last. But something about Nico's behavior nagged at the back of my mind, and I couldn't help _wondering_. 

The thing is, I knew that even on a good day Nico spent more time with the dead than the living, and lately, he'd been off on his own, with no one but the dead for company. He was doing pretty well if he hadn't, but I couldn't help but wonder if he'd ever slept with someone living before. Maybe that thought should have given me pause, maybe it even should have grossed me out. But it didn't. Not at all. The thought that mine was perhaps the first warm skin he'd touched, the first body that reacted under his hands, caused a wave of lust to wash over me, a tremor running from head to foot. I looked at Nico through my eyelashes, reaching out to grab at his arm, but my limbs felt heavy, like they were filled with lead, and there was no strength in my grip. 

Nico kept pumping my cock, but looked at me questioningly. 

"Nico," I managed to get out between gasps, because although I couldn't really explain why, I _had_ to know. "Have you ever—ever slept…?" I trailed off, momentarily overcome by the thrum of pleasure making its way through my veins. I tried again, but still couldn't finish the question as Nico flicked his wrist and my vision became hazy. He leaned down to kiss me while I hesitated, openmouthed and messy, almost as if he knew what I was about to ask and was trying to stop me asking it. 

When he pulled away, a string of my spit shining on his chin, he purposefully slowed his hand and looked at me, like he'd changed his mind and was now giving his permission. I was so distracted by the look of him that for a moment I forgot what I had been trying to ask. Inwardly I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. In the lull of intense activity my body calmed down a bit, and I was able to piece together a sentence. I took a deep breath and finally managed to ask him, "Have you ever slept with anyone before?" although now that I had said it, the question didn't seem so important; I wondered for a second why I had bothered voicing it.

But Nico just raised one eyebrow, like I should have known the answer. (And I did, really, but it wasn't the one I wanted—not what my question _meant_ ).

When I didn't say anything, he resumed his jerking of my cock, like the matter was settled. But again, I had to get it out; I had to know. "No, I mean," I said, before I lost coherency altogether. "Have you ever slept with anyone…alive?"

Silence greeted my question and I felt embarrassed, although I had no idea why. I felt the flush creep down my chest, pooling in my already painfully hard cock. Nico's hand suddenly resumed its stroking in a furious, punishing rhythm. My back arched into his space and I closed my eyes again, trying to get closer to him, trying to find any kind of friction to ease the throbbing in my dick. His whole body pressed into me suddenly, pushing me back down into the mattress, his hand shoved between us. The unexpected contact was almost too much; I mewled low in my throat, my head thrown back into my sleeping bag, my whole body stretched taut and tight.

Nico crawled up my body until his lips were pressed against my ear. His breath ghosted over my skin, already so on edge that any sensation was almost painful, and all but growled, "No."

I nearly came from that alone.

As it was, I jerked violently beneath him, my body in spasms. He backed off me again until he was kneeling, perched on all fours above me. He moved down my body and maneuvered between my legs, leaning down and taking my cock in his mouth. I nearly choked sucking in my next breath, and I had to reach down and put a hand on his shoulder to prevent him from doing anything else for the moment. I adjusted to the sensation and must have nodded my consent, because he circled his fingers around the shaft just below his lips, taking me as deep as he could before slowly backing off again, swirling his tongue around the head of my dick. 

I knew I wouldn't—couldn't—last much longer, and when Nico reached out with his other hand and cupped my balls, rolling them in his palm, I nearly lost it. But at the same moment I had a sobering thought, which was that I hadn't done _anything_ to Nico yet, and he must've been just as turned on as I was.

"Nico," I said frantically, "hey, stop for a sec." He seemed slightly confused and, frankly, disinclined to do so, but slowly pulled his mouth off my dick, his tongue tracing the vein on the way up, just because he could.

If he was wondering why I'd stopped him from giving me what could possibly have been the best orgasm of my (granted, decently short) life, he found out when I beckoned to him and, when he'd crawled up to me again, tried to flip him over. I hadn't counted on my muscles being like rubber, though, so I ended up just kind of pushing him onto the bed next to me as I struggled to get up, but he got the idea. He tried not to look too pleased as I reversed our positions; now I was straddling him, fumbling at the buckle of his jeans, trying to get them off as fast as humanly possible. (Which really, I thought, should have been pretty fast as I was only half-human, after all). I wasn't all that surprised when I found out Nico was going commando, and didn't give it much of a second thought as I worked at getting his pants over his hips, pulling them down as I moved backwards, finally reaching behind me to pull them off completely. 

Nico was hard, precome smeared over his dick, and I knew that if I checked, the inside of his pants would be stained. I took a moment just to look at him, since in my dreams he was always face down, always on top, and I'd never really _seen_ him like this. A jolt went through me when I realized that no one _else_ had ever seen him like this either, and I felt a remarkable affection for Nico at that moment, something almost overwhelming, although coupled with another dose of lust, and a desire to claim Nico for my own. 

I ran my fingers up his legs, from his knees to his hip joints, just close enough to his cock to be distracting. I leaned down and kissed the skin beneath his belly button, mouthing my way to his cock and licking up the shaft, making him jerk beneath me. I had just sucked the head of his dick into my mouth when he spoke.

"Percy," he said, almost begging. "Percy, I want—" he broke off when I swallowed around him, but it didn't matter: I knew what he wanted. I also knew that I wasn't going to _do_ what he wanted. Because hey, hopefully there would be time for that later; but right now, I wasn't going to let Nico do any of the work. 

I took him deeper, sucking him down and humming low in my throat. He tried fucking up into my mouth but I held his hips down, forcing him to take it slow. He made a frustrated noise and settled for tangling his fingers into my hair, trying to control my movements. I had to force myself not to roll my eyes at how self-assured that action was (and how much he didn't even seem to realize it) but also at just how endearing I found it. 

I blew him for several more minutes, and when I pulled off of him he cried out and tried to follow my mouth, but I still had him pinned down. When he'd calmed down a bit, his breathing still heavy but not as erratic as it'd been, I pushed myself up onto my knees and tugged at his shoulders, trying to turn him over. He seemed to know where this was headed, because he tensed up and rolled only onto his side, looking up at me. 

"Let me," I pleaded, my voice low with desire, and he seemed to think it over for a moment. 

"Yeah," he finally whispered. "Okay."

"I won't if you're not sure," I told him. "We don't have to—"

"No, Percy, it's okay," he said, sounding a little frustrated now, like he was exasperated at my concern. "Really. I want you to fuck me." He said it dirtily, like he knew how obscene it sounded. "Gods," he spit out, "I've wanted it for so long now."

He said it so honestly, so confidently, that I didn't doubt for a second that he meant it. 

He lay on his stomach and spread his legs, giving me access. By this point I was practically shaking with both anticipation and pent-up desire, and I ran my fingers unsteadily up the back of his thighs, tracing the curve of his ass. I spread him open, and leaned in to touch my tongue to the ring of muscle experimentally, seeing how he'd react. He hissed through his teeth and tensed up, but this time as a reaction to the sensation rather than because of nerves. I backed off and when he took a deep breath and relaxed, I figured it was okay to try it again. 

This time, I licked at his hole, tracing it with my tongue, and I had to suppress a smile when Nico pushed back into me, moaning. Emboldened, I licked a little harder, forcing the tip of my tongue inside of him, moving it in small circles to start opening him up. Nico's breathing got more and more ragged and he started muttering into my sleeping bag, a low hum that I could almost feel. When I'd gotten a little deeper and Nico was rocking back into me, I slowly added a finger, working it inside him along with my tongue. Nico's muttering had gotten a little louder, and I while I still couldn't hear all of the words, I did make out things like "Yeah" and "Another," so I slipped another finger inside of him. It was tight, but I worked them slowly in and out of his body, and soon I was able to fuck into him properly, my tongue and my fingers stretching him open until I could add a third. Nico's face was buried into the mattress and I had a sneaking suspicion that he was biting my sleeping bag to keep from crying out, rutting desperately against my bed. 

I pulled away rather suddenly, and he started to make a muffled protest that I effectively curbed by shoving my hand under him and grabbing his cock, jerking him off slowly but firmly. 

"You ready?" I couldn't help asking, the hint of a smirk in my voice, mostly because I wanted to be sure, but also because I knew it'd probably annoy him. 

True to form, he deigned only to grumble an affirmative, rolling his hips provocatively to help demonstrate his point. 

I let him go again and pushed myself halfway off my bed to reach into my trunk, fishing around and eventually grabbing a condom. Nico saw the packaging out of the corner of his eye, and looked at me questioningly. 

"Where'd—? he began to ask, his voice shot to Hades, but I cut him off.

"Annabeth," I said quickly, like the mention of her name would ruin everything. "She said they were for emergencies, although I'm not quite sure what she was imagining—"

It was his turn to cut me off, which he did with a husky and impatient "O _kay_ , I get it, just hurry up."

I couldn't disobey such a command, so I ripped open the package and rolled the condom slowly onto my cock, which was fully hard again and aching, my body desperate for release. I positioned myself on top of him, which was awkward for a moment as we shifted legs and knees, getting lined up. I moved forward and the head of my cock brushed against his hole, and I pushed into him an inch before stopping, giving us time to adjust.

"Percy, _move_ ," Nico said eventually, so I slowly sank all the way into him, reminding myself to breathe. 

We worked up to a decent rhythm, although not long into it my arms gave out and I ended up laying flush against him, his hair sweaty and knotted against my neck. I snaked my hand back under him to reach his cock again, and while I didn't have much leverage in such a position, I didn't really need it. I'd been so close to coming ever since I first saw Nico sitting in my cabin earlier that afternoon that my shallow thrusts were enough to get me to the edge, and the angle was such that I was hitting Nico's prostate at least every other time. 

Our breathing quickened in the silence and as my thrusts got more and more erratic my hand sped up on Nico's cock, bringing him to climax. 

He choked out a low moan as he came over my fingers, spilling into the material of my sleeping bag. He tensed around me, and with two last thrusts I followed him, my orgasm hitting me like a freight train, wiping out everything else.

I rocked into Nico as I rode it out, and eventually collapsed, boneless, on top of him. He only protested after a few minutes, and I pulled out of him gracelessly, doing nothing more than throwing the condom on the floor before flopping down next to him, waiting for my lungs to fill properly with oxygen again. 

I wanted to say something to him, although I had no idea what. Everything I had wanted to ask him seemed a little superfluous given what we'd just done, so I settled with rolling over and placing a kiss at his temple. He looked up at me and smiled lazily, and I left it at that.

I could ask him more about the dreams later, if I really wanted to. We could talk about everything that'd happened over the past few months, but I didn't really think we needed to anymore. Nico would probably ask me if I'd thought any more about his offer, but my answer hadn't changed—I still didn't know if it was worth the risk; he'd just have to find me again later. 

Presently, I knew I'd eventually have to clean up, and go find Annabeth and probably Chiron and tell them that Nico had been here, but for now, I was content to lay there, mind blissfully blank, my fingers intertwined with Nico's. 

 

He left right before sunset, when the shadows were the longest; I fell asleep that night, and didn't dream at all.


End file.
